Police Officer Thomas Schmidt is charged with assisting in the slashing death of a pet dog. He faces three criminal counts of aggravated animal cruelty, animal abuse and misconduct in office.

All of the charges are related to an incident in mid-June when police responded to a call for a dog who had bitten someone in southeast Baltimore. The dog was a 7-year-old Shar Pei named Nala, a pet that had gotten loose.

According to charging documents, Schmidt used a dog pole to gain control of the animal, then he held the dog down and tightened the pole, causing the dog to choke. The charging documents state Officer Jeffrey Bolger allegedly then said, "I'm gonna gut this thing" and used his knife to slit Nala's throat. Bolger is also charged criminally.

Schmidt was in Baltimore City Circuit Court Thursday for arraignment but his lawyers want the prosecutor in the case disqualified. In a motion, they argued the prosecutor violated a basic legal principle when she interviewed witnesses to the incident and the medics at the scene by herself with no investigators present.

Defense lawyers argued that action makes the prosecutor a witness open to question about what the people she interviewed said.

"Because (the prosecutor) will be a witness at Officer Schmidt's trial, she cannot prosecute him. Had (she) done her job properly as a prosecutor, she would not find herself in this predicament," the attorneys argued.

The judge put off Schmidt's arraignment for three weeks to give another judge a chance to rule on the defense lawyers' motion.

The same prosecutor is handling the case against Bolger, who is scheduled to be arraigned on Sept. 11.